357 Sunset

by Jude Hardin

  .357 SUNSET

  THE REACHER EXPERIMENT BOOK 5

  JUDE HARDIN

  About The Reacher Experiment series

  Rock Wahlman: Forty-one years old, United States Navy Master at Arms, E-8, retired.

  DOB 14 October 2057.

  Grew up in an orphanage, recently discovered that he is the product of a human cloning experiment, an exact genetic duplicate of a former army officer named Jack Reacher.

  Now someone wants all evidence of the experiment to be erased, which means that someone wants Wahlman to be erased.

  He’s on the run, desperate to survive, desperate to learn the truth about why all this is happening…

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  1

  What kind of idiot tries to steal a piano?

  A baby grand.

  Wide as a car.

  Rock Wahlman stood there in the ankle-deep water, trying to wrap his head around the absurdity of such a thing. He’d been walking along the alley that ran parallel to Sunset Road, minding his own business, heading two blocks west toward the main thoroughfare, taking a shortcut to a place he’d been told was a good place to get something to eat, when he’d heard a trickling sound and had turned his head enough to notice that a set of French doors on the back of one of the houses was standing wide open.

  When he’d walked up to the doors and peeked in, it was immediately obvious that water was leaking into the house from somewhere, and when he’d stepped inside and started looking around, it was immediately obvious that a wall had been partially demolished with a sledgehammer, and that a copper pipe had been severely damaged in the process.

  No furniture in the house, other than the piano. The thief—or team of thieves, probably, the more Wahlman thought about it—had been trying to push the bulky instrument from one room to another, moving it closer to the French doors, closer to the alley, where a truck was probably waiting. They’d busted the wall apart in an attempt to widen the interior doorway.

  Not a bad plan, Wahlman supposed, as far as dumbass plans devised by dumbass people went, but apparently the dumbass people had given up when the water had started gushing out of the broken pipe.

  “Hands on your head,” a male voice from behind Wahlman shouted. “Turn around and face me. Slowly.”

  “I was just trying to—”

  “Hands on your head, asshole. Now!”

  Wahlman didn’t like being told what to do, and he didn’t like being called an asshole. But the man had him at a disadvantage. From the sound of the man’s voice, Wahlman figured he was standing approximately ten feet away from where Wahlman was standing. Wahlman was a very large man, and he had a very long reach. But not that long. The man standing behind him spoke authoritatively. Unwaveringly. Probably a cop, Wahlman thought. Probably aiming his service weapon in the general direction of Wahlman’s heart.

  Wahlman laced his fingers together behind his head, turned around slowly and faced the man, who was indeed a cop, and who was indeed standing approximately ten feet from where Wahlman was standing, and who was indeed aiming the fat barrel of a semi-automatic pistol in the general direction of Wahlman’s heart.

  The man wore a dark blue uniform. There was a silver badge pinned over his left breast pocket, and a black microphone attached to his right epaulet. Black patent leather holster. Wahlman figured he had matching shoes, but it was impossible to tell for sure at the moment, because they were covered with four or five inches of smelly gray water.

  The engraved banner at the top of the officer’s badge said RPD. Reality Police Department. The plastic nameplate above the banner said Hurt.

  “I can explain,” Wahlman said.

  “Shut up,” Officer Hurt said.

  He keyed his mic, identified himself to the dispatcher, and requested backup. Breaking and entering, he said. Three fifty-seven Sunset Road. One suspect, currently being detained at gunpoint.

  A few minutes later, three more officers showed up.

  A few minutes after that, Wahlman was sitting in the back of Officer Hurt’s police car with his hands cuffed behind his back. The door Wahlman had been forced into, the door on the rear passenger side, had been left open, and the four officers were standing a few feet away, talking about something in hushed tones.

  Wahlman had spent twenty years as a Master-At-Arms in the United States Navy. So he had a pretty good idea of what Hurt and the other guys were talking about. They were probably discussing whether or not they had enough evidence against Wahlman to actually arrest him. If they thought they did, Officer Hurt, who had been first on the scene, would probably read Wahlman his rights and then drive him to the station for processing. If they thought they didn’t, Officer Hurt would probably remove the handcuffs and send Wahlman on his merry way.

  Officer Hurt turned and stepped closer to the car.

  “What were you doing inside the house?” he said.

  “I was trying to find the main water valve,” Wahlman said. “I was going to shut it off.”

  “Why?”

  “Seemed like the neighborly thing to do.”

  “You live around here? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying it seemed like the neighborly thing to do. You can do something neighborly without actually being a neighbor.”

  “Why don’t you have any identification with you?” Hurt said.

  “I already answered that question. Right after your friend over there patted me down.”

  “Answer it again.”

  “I left my wallet in my car,” Wahlman said.

  Which was a lie. Wahlman had actually left the wallet in his hotel room, but he didn’t want the police to know that he had such easy access to it. Once your phony driver’s license got scanned and put into the system, you pretty much had to get a new one right away. And the good ones were expensive.

  “Where’s your car?” Officer Hurt said.

  “Reality Auto Repair. Sunset and Fifth. They were closing up just as I left. I took one of their business cards from a stack on the counter. It was in my front pocket. Your friend over there took it. I need it back.”

  Wahlman had been traveling west on the interstate when his SUV broke down. He’d been planning on making it through Missouri and into Kansas before dark, but the engine had started making a strange rattling sound, and then it had quit running altogether. Back in the day when most people still used cell phones on a regular basis, most people would have stayed with the vehicle and called for a tow truck. But those days were long gone. Cell phones were still around. Some people still carried them. Most didn’t. Wary of the growing number of hackers out to steal their lives, most people had reverted to landlines in their homes, and most people had started using payphones if they needed to make calls while they were out. Wahlman hadn’t owned a cell phone in a long time, and he certainly wouldn’t have been carrying one now that he was on the run. Too easy to hack, too easy to track, as the old saying went. So when his car had broken down, Wahlman had pulled to the shoulder and had climbed out of the vehicle and had walked to the nearest exit.

  There had been a sign at the bottom of the ramp, with two arrows painted on it. One of the arrows pointed east, and the other pointed west.

  The arrow that pointed east said FANTASY 1.4 MILES.

  The one that pointed west said REALITY 1.3 MILES.

  Wahlman had chosen Reality. It was a tenth of a mile closer
, for one thing, and it was west of where he’d broken down, which would put him that much closer to Kansas once his SUV was towed in and repaired.

  The people over at Reality Auto Repair had seemed very nice, and the people at the hotel across the street had seemed very nice, but now Wahlman was starting to wish that he’d walked in the opposite direction.

  Reality was getting a little hard to deal with at the moment.

  “What’s wrong with your car?” Officer Hurt said.

  “I don’t know,” Wahlman said. “I’m not a mechanic.”

  “What are you?”

  “Just a guy.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s not supposed to mean anything.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I already answered that question too.”

  “Answer it again.”

  Wahlman gave Officer Hurt the same fake name he’d given the officer who’d searched him earlier. The officer who’d searched him earlier was named Tingly. Short and round and balding. Sergeant’s stripes. Thick brown mustache, littered with some powdery remnants of the doughnut he’d been eating when he’d gotten the call to come for backup.

  Tingly was still standing a few feet away from Officer Hurt’s cruiser, standing there with the other two guys, the three of them laughing about something now.

  Wahlman didn’t know the names of the other two guys. He’d never gotten close enough to them to read their nameplates.

  “Must be a slow crime day in Reality,” Wahlman said, nodding toward the jolly trio.

  “Where do you live?” Hurt said.

  “The Reality Hotel. Sunset and Fifth. Right across the street from—”

  “I know where it is,” Hurt said. “I need a home address.”

  “I’m currently between residences,” Wahlman said.

  “You mean you’re moving somewhere?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Where?”

  “I was on my way to Kansas when I broke down.”

  “Why were you walking down this particular alley, at this particular time of the evening?”

  “Because this is the United States of America, and I’m allowed to do that.”

  Officer Hurt nodded. He turned and stepped over to where the other three officers were standing. Tingly and the other two guys. A couple of minutes later, Officer Hurt walked back over to the cruiser and helped Wahlman out and removed the cuffs.

  “We’re going to let you off with a warning this time,” he said, handing over the folded wad of cash that Tingly had taken from Wahlman’s front pocket, along with the business card from Reality Auto Repair.

  “What are you warning me not to do?” Wahlman said.

  “I’m warning you not to be a smartass, for one thing. And I’m warning you not to walk into houses that aren’t yours.”

  “What if I’m invited into a house that isn’t mine?”

  “What did I just say about not being a smartass?”

  Wahlman shrugged. He massaged some circulation back into his wrists, and then he proceeded toward the place he’d been told was a good place to get something to eat.

  2

  Wahlman sat at the counter. Not on the stool closest to the door, but the one next to that. He didn’t like being on the very end. There never seemed to be enough elbow room. A waitress gave him a menu and a glass of ice water and she walked away and came back a couple of minutes later and he ordered a double bacon cheeseburger. Well-done, fully dressed, mayonnaise on the side. He ordered the platter, which came with fries and coleslaw and a drink.

  Any drink you wanted, any size.

  Wahlman wanted coffee.

  “What size?” the waitress said.

  She was holding a ballpoint pen and a pad of guest checks. Old school. Like something you might see in a classic film.

  “This is not a to-go order,” Wahlman said. “I’m going to eat here.”

  He looked to see if the waitress was wearing a nametag. She wasn’t. She was young. Twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. She had blue eyes and light brown hair and perfect teeth. She was working the counter by herself. It was dinnertime, and the place was busy, but everyone except Wahlman was sitting at a table or a booth. Which meant that he pretty much had her to himself for the moment. A nice relaxed situation, ordinarily. But it didn’t seem that way. There was a tenseness about the waitress. A sense of urgency. As if there were ten customers sitting at the counter instead of just one.

  “I still need to know what size coffee you want,” she said, thumbing the clicker on her ballpoint pen.

  Nervously.

  Repeatedly.

  Annoyingly.

  “I want a ceramic mug,” Wahlman said. “Whatever size that is. And I want you to come and fill it for me every time it gets close to being empty.”

  “That’s not how it works here,” the waitress said.

  “How does it work here?”

  “We have paper cups. You can get any size you want with the platter you ordered, but if you want more after that, it costs extra.”

  Wahlman thought about that. He figured The Reality Diner served hundreds of drinks every day. Which meant that hundreds of paper cups were being tossed into the trashcan every day. It seemed very wasteful. Not to mention that a number of the cups probably ended up on the side of the highway.

  “This is the first diner I’ve ever been to that doesn’t serve coffee in real cups,” Wahlman said.

  “They’re real cups,” the waitress said. “They’re just made out of paper.”

  “Is there another restaurant around here?”

  “You want to cancel your order?”

  “No. Just wondering.”

  “There’s a place over in Fantasy.”

  “Do they serve coffee in paper cups?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been there.”

  “I guess I’ll take a large,” Wahlman said. “What’s your name?”

  “We’re not allowed to tell customers our names,” the waitress said. “Sorry. You want cream and sugar with that?”

  “No thanks. Is there a payphone here somewhere?”

  “Outside. By the newspaper machines.”

  Wahlman got up and walked outside. He pulled the business card out of his pocket, slid some coins into the phone, and punched in the number. A man picked up after four rings.

  “Reality Auto,” the man said.

  “I was calling to check on my car,” Wahlman said.

  “Which one is yours?”

  “The white SUV.”

  “You need a fuel pump.”

  “Okay. What time do you think you’ll have it done?”

  The man laughed. “We closed an hour ago,” he said. “Technically, I’m not even supposed to be answering the phone this late.”

  “Are you the guy I talked to a while ago?”

  “That’s me.”

  “So what happened?”

  Earlier, Wahlman had offered to pay the man extra money to perform the repair right away. A hundred dollars. Sort of a bonus. Straight from Wahlman’s pocket to the man’s pocket. The man had agreed to those terms. He’d wanted the money up front, and Wahlman had given it to him. The man had promised to get the job done, even if it took until midnight.

  “Couldn’t get the part,” the man said. “I put in a special order. Should be here sometime in the morning. At least by lunchtime. But we’re kind of backed up right now, so—”

  “I need to be in Junction City by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” Wahlman said.

  “Don’t know what to tell you,” the man said.

  Wahlman had been searching for information pertaining to an army colonel who went by the name of Dorland. It was a codename. Wahlman knew that much. It had to be, because Wahlman had searched every military database available to the public, and there weren’t any officers currently on active duty with that last name.

  Which meant that Wahlman needed to gain access to the army’s restricted databa
ses.

  Which meant that he needed passwords.

  He’d set up a meeting with a professional hacker, a civilian who worked part time in one of the offices at Fort Riley. The guy hadn’t made any promises, and he hadn’t given Wahlman any details about how the exchange of information was going to work. That was what the meeting was supposed to be about. The guy refused to discuss the matter over the phone or online.

  Which was understandable.

  The guy would be taking a huge risk if he ended up actually doing what Wahlman wanted him to do.

  Now it was starting to look like the meeting wasn’t even going to happen, because it was starting to look like a fuel pump wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight, anyway. Special order, the man had said.

  “What about my hundred dollars?” Wahlman said.

  “What hundred dollars?” the man said.

  Wahlman thought about ripping the receiver away from the steel-coated cable it was attached to and carrying it over to Reality Auto Repair and shoving it up the man’s ass. But he didn’t. He calmly told the man that he would stop by in the morning to discuss the matter further, and then he hung up the phone.

  Now the man would have all night to think about it. Maybe he would decide to give Wahlman the money back on his own. Or maybe he would need a certain amount of persuasion. Either way, Wahlman wasn’t leaving Reality until the cash he’d given the man was back in his pocket.

  He walked back into the diner and sat on the same stool he’d been sitting on earlier. He’d been hoping that the food he’d ordered would be waiting for him, but it wasn’t. The Waitress With No Name hadn’t even poured him any coffee yet. She was talking to a pair of guys at the other end of the counter. Both of the guys were wearing jeans and flannel shirts and ball caps, and neither of them had shaved in a while. They were older than the waitress, but younger than Wahlman. Late twenties, early thirties. Wahlman figured they’d walked in while he was on the phone.

  The waitress glanced over at Wahlman, and then she turned back around and held up an index finger to let the guys she’d been talking to know that she would be right back. She walked to Wahlman’s end of the counter and asked him if he still wanted coffee.